Two Western Shoshone Tribes and individual Western Shoshone Indians
and downwinders from Nevada and Utah have asked a federal judge
in Las Vegas for a second time to stop the huge above-ground explosion
now scheduled for June 23, 2006, at the Nevada Test Site. The blast
was first scheduled for June 2, 2006, but then cancelled and re-scheduled
after the lawsuit was filed on April 20.

In support of their motion for an injunction filed today, those
seeking to stop the blast have filed statements from Dr. Thomas
Fasy, of the Executive Committee of the New York City Chapter of
Physicians for Social Responsibility, and of Richard Miller, a toxic
exposures expert from Houston, who authored the five volume U.S.
Atlas of Nuclear Fallout. Dr. Fasy wrote that “to a reasonable
degree of medical and scientific certainty . . . the “Divine
Strake” explosion would disperse large amounts of radioactive
particles into the atmosphere . . . millions of citizens living
downwind . . . are at risk of inhaling particles” and that
“it is virtually certain that this inhalation of radioactive
particles would result in an increased frequency of a variety of
cancers in the exposed populations. Moreover, the increased risk
of developing cancers would be borne disproportionately by the children
living downwind.”

In his statement, Miller singled out what he called DOE’s
“insufficient research regarding the health effects of many
of the potential radioisotopes possibly buried in the soil that
may be entrained in the dust cloud as a result of the Divine Strake
event.” Miller and Fasy both warn that “entire communities
may be exposed to radioisotopes including alpha emitters such as
americium -241- an acknowledged carcinogen.”

The Plaintiffs’ Reno-based attorney, Robert Hager, also
asked Federal District Judge Lloyd George to find that the planned
blast would violate the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty and the Congressional ban on the development of new nuclear
weapons. The Plaintiffs filed a written declaration of John Burroughs,
Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy
based in New York City, in support of that request. Burroughs noted
that the Divine Strake test “reflects a doctrine of warfighting
in which nuclear weapons could be used first, against states not
possessing nuclear weapons, in an integrated fashion with non-nuclear
forces” which Burroughs wrote “is wholly inconsistent
with a ‘diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies’
agreed by the United States in 2000 and a central element of compliance
with the disarmament obligation.”

In the papers filed today, Hager criticized Bechtel of Nevada
and the federal Departments of Defense and Energy for “procedural
genuflection” by filing papers in a thinly disguised attempt
to comply with environmental administrative procedures. Hager claims
that the government agencies and Bechtel of Nevada have engaged
in “junk science” and have “intentionally failed”
to conduct proper sampling of the soil, and has asked the Court
to halt any further “testing” by Bechtel and government
agencies based on alleged conflict of interest.